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Matt Foss, center, leads the cast in song during a rehearsal of the The Foss Projects theater group interpretation of Shakespeare's 'Love's Labour's Lost' April 11, 2013 at a garage in Ames. / Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register

Actors in plays directed by Iowa State University lecturer Matt Foss have rehearsed in warehouses. They’ve worn dust masks and costume pieces pulled from the trash.

The Foss Projects theater troupe, brainchild of Foss, 33, follows in the tradition of Shakespeare, who exhibited his work in outdoor venues. His actors wore attire cast off by wealthy patrons.

The group will perform its adaptation of “Love’s Labour’s Lost” at the Des Moines Art Center Friday through Sunday. Shakespeare’s play features a young king and his friends who vow to abstain from the company of women for three years. Temptation arises when the Princess of Trent and her court arrive on a mission for the king of France. The king and his men abandon their vow and pursue the women with letters, gifts and dancing.

The troupe is smaller than is called for in Shakespeare’s original work. Foss and his cast of mostly ISU students adapted the play and added music to bridge gaps created after removing characters and sections. The songs combine Shakespeare’s words or poems by his contemporaries with music written by folk pop band Bella Ruse.

Audience members will be called onto stage by comedic characters, or clowns. They will fill additional roles, play in the band, deliver messages and even arrest one of the characters.

“There’s a lot of interaction, particularly between the clowns and the audience, the same way a clown at a circus, Cirque du Soleil or a street performer would work,” Foss said. “We’re employing similar mechanics.”

Des Moines audiences can watch “Love’s Labour’s Lost” at the Des Moines Art Center in a different place for every performance: on the roof of the Museum Services Center, in the courtyard and in Levitt Auditorium. The performances are part of the museum’s three-project Iowa Artists 2013 series.

Audiences at the Des Moines Art Center will be able to select from pre-arranged seating. At past Foss Projects shows, cast members have invited viewers to sit wherever they could find room, leaving performers to work in spaces larger or smaller than rehearsed.

For Foss, preparing to perform in different areas is similar to learning grammar rather than memorizing a language. Before a performance, members will talk about the space and how to react in a variety of scenarios –— if a dog runs onstage or if an audience member sits in one location versus another.

“As these younger actors are learning, they get pretty good about figuring out where to put themselves in the space based on where we’re performing and where the audience has decided to sit that night,” Foss said.